'Everything' you wanted to know about Rivals and Scout...

Here is what we call the perfect example and an opportunity to 'explain' how the Rivals and Scout networks generally operate.

Hassan Whiteside, a 6-11, 200 prepster out of a school in North Carolina, just announced his commitment to Marshall.

Besides the uniqueness of a 'big' with a very solid upside choosing Marshall, there are some important points to make.

Numero uno: Marshall wasn't listed as one of his schools of interest prior to his selecting to go with Donnie Jones and The Thundering Herd.

Here's the latest list of Whiteside suitors per Rivals:

COLLEGE CHOICES
Auburn
Florida State
Kentucky
Louisville
Memphis
Mississippi State
N.C. State
Seton Hall
South Carolina
South Florida
St. John's
Charlotte
West Virginia
Xavier
Nevada

But this is an unusual situation as, more often than not, a youngster does pick a school among those listed.

Nevada may have still been interested (an offer was extended at some point) but the likelihood of getting this kid out of the East was next to nil. Still, a Nevada fan seeing this would probably or possibly get his or her hopes up.

#2: Schools of interest at both Rivals and Scout aren't updated on a timely basis -- those schools that either fall or choose to fall by the wayside don't get dropped from the list of suitors and new suitors don't get added unless a new article is written somewhere on the network with a more up-to-date school listing and who among those are the so-called favorites.

But don't take this to mean that subscriptions to either network aren't worth the money -- this is just a heads-up on how the systems work and how to 'interpret' the data.